It seriously kills me how many girls & women think they are not good enough. Their body or their face or their personality or whatever crap they let somebody else put into their heads. Every day, I hear of another girl that deflects a compliment or “pays for” their food choices with obscene amounts of exercise or eats less for a while & is then ashamed when her body craves crazy “fattening” things. And I hear mothers say that to their 12 year olds or their 5 year olds or girls say it to their friends, and as long as somebody laughs it off in the end, everyone is ok with this. I AM NOT OK WITH IT. I absolutely hate it. It breaks my heart. Your body is great. Your personality is great. Your intentions are good enough, and your life is worth more than a fad diet every 2 months for eternity.

A 70 year old client I had last year said to me “Do you know how much time I wasted trying to stop myself from eating & shame myself into a size smaller and then 2 sizes smaller than that? And it was NEVER good enough. I wasted years, Sara. Years! I could have been actually living & instead I was intently focused on hating myself for 50 years. I didn’t think of it that way at the time, of course. I was just so desperate to make myself ‘better’ that I missed the better parts of my life. I look at pictures from that time and say “look how strong I was” or “look how pretty I was,” but I could never see it when I looked in the mirror.”

Is this really who you want to be? Is this really who you think you are?? When you look back on your life, will it be a desperate race from one diet to the next, one punishing workout to the next, one failure to the next? Or will you accept yourself, imperfect, less than your best, falling apart at the seams and yet ok with who you are as a work in progress?

Because you know what’s most beautiful? Unfinished business. Unfinished housework. Less than desirable cooking. Imperfect college essays. Missed goals. Face plants. Failures. Hardships. An absolute mess. Because when you come out the other side of that (and by the way, you always do get through it somehow), you appreciate what you’ve accomplished. What you’ve achieved. What you gained after that one hiccup. How far you’ve come.

Don’t wait until you’re 70 or 90 or 150 to see that you’re special. That you’re awesome. That you’ve done it all and more. You don’t need to be a twig. You don’t have to settle for less. You are more than a setback or a missed opportunity. You may not see this in yourself yet, but I have every faith in you. And I truly love you, just the way you are.